But, whatever may have been the first movements of his ambition
in this direction, they were soon relinquished. Had he been connected
with any distinguished political families, his love of eminence,
seconded by such example and sympathy, would have impelled him, no
doubt, to seek renown in the fields of party warfare where it might
have been his fate to afford a signal instance of that transmuting
process by which, as Pope says, the corruption of a poet sometimes
leads to the generation of a statesman. Luckily, however, for the
world (though whether luckily for himself may be questioned), the
brighter empire of poesy was destined to claim him all its own. The
loneliness, indeed, of his position in society at this period, left
destitute, as he was, of all those sanctions and sympathies, by which
youth at its first start is usually surrounded, was, of itself, enough
to discourage him from embarking in a pursuit, where it is chiefly on
such extrinsic advantages that any chance of success must depend. So
far from taking an active part in the proceedings of his noble
brethren, he appears to have regarded even the ceremony of his
attendance among them as irksome and mortifying; and in a few days
after his admission to his seat, he withdrew himself in disgust to the
seclusion of his own Abbey, there to brood over the bitterness of
premature experience, or meditate, in the scenes and adventures of
other lands, a freer outlet for his impatient spirit than it could
command at home.
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